Posing With His Dogs: Painting from an old black and white photograph.

This was a gift I did for my mom and it made her very happy today. Her father died when she was a teenager and she was the apple of his eye. She told me stories of how protective the two dogs Queen and Belle were when she was growing up. My mother is very stoic - up til today I rarely have seen her get emotional. She kept saying it was like he was in the room with her. Then I realized, all these years all she had was a few small black and white grainy, faded photos of him. Seeing him in color on a 18 x 24 inch canvas brought him back to her. I never realized how powerful it could be to put color into her world in this way. Over and over she called me the next dew months telling how he greeted her each morning and how much it changed her to have him in the room with her. She felt at home for the first time in a long time... in a home she had lived in for over 30 years.

Boxer Portrait: Cooper

This was a pet portrait commissioned as a Christmas gift to a young man by his mom. I pondered if a man so young would appreciate this unusual gift. No doubt, I was told he loved it.

The photo below is the original Photograph of Cooper that her mom sent me to paint Coopers Pet Portrait.

The Divine Eternal Reunion: Together Forever

 The Divine Eternal Reunion: Together Forever was envisioned by a nice man who commissioned me to paint it for him. This is his view of what heaven will be like and  as an artist it was my job to paint it as he saw it and what he wanted. That was a hard job! He called early one morning to discuss his idea and said he wanted me to work with him on this because he had seen some "spiritual" paintings I had done and trusted me with his idea. He explained that he had lost his beloved wife just three years earlier and wanted a painting of heaven and the reunion that we will all have at the coming of Christ. He began to share with me his idea of a painting of heaven based on Revelation 21:4.  I opened my bible and began to read the  verse. And God shall wipe away all of their tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall their be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.✞

 

 

We discussed the bright light and the colors of the rainbow and multitudes of people all hugging and being reunited with great joy. As an artist it is hard to not add your own ideas so I  got really into the angels and how Jesus would look and wanted to do a throne, a lion and a lamb. Later we both decided that it would best serve the idea of the painting if we left that off.  We talked about an angel pouring out all the prayers of the saints based on Psalms 56:8Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? and  also  Revelation 5:8And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.